Ripped Knees, in St Mary’s Place, sells a range of kick scooters aimed mainly at youngsters aged between six and 18.

It also has a custom scooter builing facility on its website that allows customers to pick their own parts and design their own scooter.

Dad-of-two Barry Lynch started the business in February 2012 and was previously based in the Ouseburn Valley.

The 39-year-old, of Heaton, Newcastle, said: “You see youngsters zooming around on push scooters in the park and on the way to school etc. This is a sport that has eclipsed the next best extreme sports of BMX, skateboarding and rollerblading incredibly.

“You may also have noticed that over the past five years or so, skateparks have been popping up all over the UK, including in Newcastle and Sunderland.

“There are also many outdoor parks, including in Exhibition Park, Newcastle, which was purpose-built by the council due to the growing demand. In fact, almost every town within the North East has its own outdoor skatepark.

“Ours is a niche store to cater for this market.

“When we first opened, we wanted to give something unique to the community - not just a bricks and mortar outlet but something unique online that would bring people to us and create interest and options for the public to become involved in the sport.

“Our first premises was in the Ouseburn Valley. We opened the store and the new website at the same time, and we quickly developed a large local and online following.

“We have mass numbers attached to our social media platforms including Facebook, where we have 45,000 followers.”

Mr Lynch, who has been in the North East since 1996 and studied at Sunderland University, says there are only a handful of shops in the world that offer a custom scooter building facility.

He added: “All the parts we sell, over 3,000, are loaded into a programme and anyone can come on and pick their parts to make their own custom stunt scooter.

“Custom scooter building is huge as kids no longer want to buy a particular scooter from a brand and visit a skatepark only to find 10 people riding the same one. The programme is also unique because you can see your scooter visually changing before you each time you click on a part.

“We now look forward to building our business further in Newcastle city centre.”